


Wildfire

by laviie



Category: DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel), DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, I love koujaku..., Koujaku's POV, M/M, Unrequited love is so much fun to write but also so much pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:35:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8083315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laviie/pseuds/laviie
Summary: You're so caught up in a feeling you believed you knew before, but never truly did before now, and while in your muscles a strength grows like wildfire your hands find a new ideal place on the hips you're holding and your cheek suddenly belongs against the beating chest of your best friend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A small fic I wrote for someone very special.. hope you like it! ♡  
> I'm still learning to write Koujaku, I hope it's okay!

The air smells like cherry blossoms and sweet donuts and it's as you close your eyes and breath in a mouthful of fresh air that you realize nothing really changed since the last time you've been here, except now you're much older, more tired but much, much happier. Because you know this time, this time you won't have to leave. 

You try to be careful as you walk down the streets you used to play around when you were a child, a part of your mind hoping your paths won't cross with anyone you know, and not for a special reason of any kind, it's just you're wearing the worst kimono you own- grey and bland, one or two sizes bigger than you'd need it to be- and your hair is a complete disaster, not to mention you probably smell like rotten fish after a whole week of ferry to reach Midorijima's port spent surrounded by fishermen and young kids coughing. As your feet walk the paved grounds of your island's old streets, your chest fills with memories of your younger days: blue skies, blue sea, your mother's favorite blue earrings and the blue hair of the blue boy you met at the park years ago. You saw him blooming the same way you saw cherry blossoms bloom every year, but with him everyday a new flower opened and soon he wasn't a blue boy anymore. He was a young, beautiful body of porcelain with wide eyes and beautiful sunny skies trapped in his hair. You remember him so clearly the back of your eyes trembles from the emotion you can't let out, and you know you can't keep on walking like this so you push aside the best days of your life and try focusing on the road you still have to walk to arrive home.

Your house is just like you remember it: tall and fierce, a symbol of your mother's family and her sublime tastes. You open your front door and the second you enter, you realize her smell still lingers in every room. It's a smell of spring, of colorful flowers that for how beautiful couldn't compare to her grace. You sigh, contrasting emotions fighting in your chest as you strip off your ugly kimono and tug it between your hands. You walk towards the backdoor and take advantage of an open bedroom door to throw your clothes on a floor that isn't in the way of the main corridor. You haven't changed since you were a child- untidy, disorganized but always optimist.   
Just outside the backdoor there used to be your mother's zen garden, a place filled with lanterns and beautiful sakura trees she loved so much; you have so many beautiful memories of that place, going there now and seeing it withered and sad would destroy you. But you can't even leave it alone, completely abandoned: it was your mother's, after all.  
So you opened the backdoor, hand on heart praying for everything to be exactly like you remembered it, and it was. You took in the view: the sakura trees were in full bloom, their flowers gracefully rested upon the thin branches, and the lanterns hanging underneath them were still peacefully swinging in the breeze. The fish in the small pond seemed happy and healthy- of this, you're sure, you can't thank anyone but your neighbor, an old woman who was extremely friends with your mother and promised to keep an eye of the pond while she was gone. You and your mother had been gone for years, but she never stopped feeding your fish and it's only thanks to her that today they're still so colorful. You sit down on your veranda and thousand memories of your happy childhood days fill your mind.

You remember Aoba laughing and running with you in circles around the house and the way back then your heart already filled with joy everytime you saw him. And it's been so long and you can barely imagine just the beauty he grew up into, but you don't even think to be able to prepare yourself to when you'll see him next, so you give up on trying to put together his delicate features in a more adult face and instead head back inside: you're hungry and you could use some sleep right now. You think you ca get to the kitchen with no effort but your legs give you up halfway and you turn inside the bedroom door instead. You somehow avoid tripping on the ball you made out of your ugly kimono and fall belly down on your mattress. The smell of the sheets puts you at ease and your mind blanks out on a full view of cherry trees, your mother's smile and Aoba's small, pale hands holding onto you tightly before you left the island. 

________________________

You stayed in Midorijima for two days now, but didn't really leave your house yet: you've been too busy cleaning around and tidying your tables and night stands and framing some pictures of your mother and you as a kid. You're the worst cook you know and your stomach rebels everytime you try eating something you prepare but you pretend you like the taste of your home cooking and keep on going like this until your house isn't like brand new. You glance up at the clock and realize it's almost lunchtime again. You leave out a painful sigh thinking of the horrendous lunch that's waiting for you, and just as you're setting some pots on the cookers, a brilliant idea to save both your stomach and some ingredients bolts in your mind. You're going to see Aoba.  
You knew you would've been one day, you weren't exactly hoping for your crying belly the first thing he heard from you after years but hey, some things you just couldn't control. Something you could control, instead, was your hair and when you look at yourself after what felt like years but actually is only a few hours the horror you see makes your heart stop for a brief second. Okay, it's alright: you'll spend a good half an hour fixing it and brushing it until it looks normal again. Thirty minutes later the time you were supposed to spend on your image duplicates and by the time you're clean, fresh and dressed more than an hour has passed. Lunchtime isn't over yet, and since it's not a weekday you assume Aoba and Tae are eating together. You hope seeing your face after all these years will make him smile the same way it did when you barely were a teen and he was a small child. 

Aoba's house is exactly like you remembered it- a bit old fashioned but always in shape, just like Tae. You must admit you are a bit nervous to the thought you're so close to this place again after all this time, but you're feeling optimist and want to believe everything will go smoothly and you'll be able to have fun with Aoba the way you used to.

You knock and wait outside for only a few minutes, but they're the longest few minutes you have ever pulled through. During the silent pause of your wait you contemplate your next future in an almost hypnotic way. You see Aoba's face smiling and his hair dancing in the air around him, you hear his beautiful voice and the way he speaks the beautiful words his mind processes. You close your eyes for a brief moment and think that you really are a lucky guy, having a friend as beautiful as him. And you don't mean just beautiful outside, like you know he grew into, but beautiful inside as well, in a way that time couldn't have changed. For a short second you think of what you would do if he wasn't to care about you the same way he used to. Would you be able to pull through everything without his trusted shoulder to rely on? You look down. You wouldn't. If he was to not love you as much as he used to, your heart would rest in fucking pieces and you're not sure of what you'd do next. But one thing you're sure- nothing could ever replace him. Not a love, not a friend, no one.

Interrupting you from your thoughts Aoba's front door flies open, and the eyes you're met with stop your heart for a moment. They're the same eyes you so loved as a child and now they're just as bright as they used to, but with a different spark in them. It's the same pale skin as years ago, but now looks like white porcelain and you wouldn't be able to tell it's human flesh if it wasn't for the timid blush sparkled on his cheeks. A smile rises on your face the second you assemble the image of him in his complexity, a body that was never strong and possibly would have never been but so perfectly proportionated and elegant.  
The surprise on his face makes you amused and you can barely keep a chuckle. You greet him as if it was the most obvious thing in the world- having you back on the island- and invite yourself to lunch. 

He looks a bit confused but happy, and you tell him everything that happened while you were away- or everything that you can say, for the matter- while you help him setting the table for three. Tae is happy you're back, and even if she never really shows anything you can tell she's relieved you're doing well- she always knew more about your mother's situation that Aoba did, and you coming back all together wasn't the most obvious of the things. She scolded you on your never warning before showing up, telling you with her usual pissed tone that if you did she'd have prepared more to eat than a simple summertime lunch for two. You laugh and assure her it's okay, you weren't as hungry anyway, but she must know you're saying this only to make her feel better. The truth is, just a little taste of Tae's food after the disastrous memories of your own home cooking will make you feel thousand times better and will be enough fuel for a whole week.   
But it's not on Tae's cooking that your mind keeps coming back to today, it's on the smiling eyes sitting next to you and the way his bony hands intertwine one with another as he talks his little talks with you. 

__________________________

Lunch was just as good as lunches with Tae can get, and with your stomach now full and an immediate feeling of sleepiness taking over your whole body, you thank for the meal and bye-bye both Tae and Aoba, and it's a new feeling doing it knowing you'll be able to see them again anytime you want. You somehow manage to stagger back home awake and once you walk past the front door, you strip of your best kimono and plop down on your soft mattress. You spend only a few seconds congratulating with yourself for the excellent cleaning up job you've done, and then you fall asleep. 

In your drifting consciousness, shapes form under your eyelids and your lips grow into a spontaneous smile as you recognize the form and texture of pale hands. They caress your face down to your neck and hold onto your wrists powerfully but gracefully, drowning your mind into complete bliss. You want to know the eyes and mouth of this feeling and you spontaneously feel as if you're looking upwards, what you see only partially surprises you. You're met with an amused grin that feels like an open invitation to devour the thin lips framing it, the sweet eyes of hazel you've crossed today at lunch and crossed thousands of times before, but never before now sent chills down your spine and froze you to the bone the way they're doing now. He leans over and presses against your mouth, a bittersweet taste of blood and sugar only slightly confusing you, and you're tired of being so passive as your wildest dream is dancing on your lap, be it only in your imaginary. You grab on tightly to the pale hips under your thumbs and as you breath in the nape of the white neck you're leaning against the smell of your childhood's summer- of sugary lemonade, sea breeze and cherry trees- fills your lungs. You place a firm kiss on a pulsing blue vein under your lips and the body against you trembles softly. You hold the small, thin back around your arms closer to you and feel each and every bone hurting against your chest, a certain poetry in the way the pain of such an esile being under you suddenly is everything you ever wanted to feel, and close your eyes, focused on the feeling of sweetness filling your head from the back of your eyelids to the core of your brain.   
You're so caught up in a feeling you believed you knew before, but never truly did before now, and while in your muscles a strength grows like wildfire your hands find a new ideal place on the hips you're holding and your cheek suddenly belongs against the beating chest of your best friend.

_________________________

It's when you wake up in the late evening that a sense of guilt hovers over you. You open your eyes, feeling refreshed but also terribly mortified for having slept a whole afternoon away. That's just what Tae's food does to you, you think, and you walk towards the bathroom to wash some sleepiness off your face. You see your face in the mirror, and you realize.

That this morning your eyes weren't as bright. 

That before your cheeks were only ever this red from the alcohol. 

That your lips are not bit and cut anymore. 

That you bleed less on the inside. 

Your mind slowly builds everything you've dreamt of over, and your heart becomes heavy and pulses more noticeably in your chest. It was nothing like anything you had ever felt before, nothing could compare to the feeling of seeing your hands, so scarred and bony, belonging on a body so well. You look down at them, resting your eyes on your white palms. You haven't touched him- not with the hands you're looking at now. But you did touch him in your mind, you kissed him, you held him. You loved him.

You loved him?

Do you love him? 

You look back up in the mirror, now more scared than anything. You see the signs showing on your own skin. You feel strong in your limbs, strong in your back, strong in your neck. You're not afraid. 

You're in love.

You're in love with your bestest friend.

You can't look at yourself in the mirror right now, so you walk back to your bed and lay down again. You'd close your eyes, but you're so fearful that if you did, you'd see him again, you'd feel what you felt in your dream again, you'd want to touch him desperately again, and you can't afford that.   
How did this happen? You ask this, but you know better this didn't happen at all- it's just always been. You grumble to yourself as you wonder if that childish affection you used to feel towards him as a younger boy meant something into this whole situation. Didn't you always think of him in harder times when no one seemed to be a good enough reason to carry on? You did, you always did. And your mother knew. Your mother.. She loved Aoba almost as a second son. You wonder what she would've been thinking if she knew your feelings for him.   
Maybe everything you felt for him turned into something different, maybe in the same thing but much, much stronger. You wonder when your feelings turned so impure. If someone asked you wouldn't say it's love- you loved before, of this you're sure, and if you had to explain this sensation, it was different from love.   
You loved before, you loved women in a way you couldn't understand yourself, you loved looking at them and watching them the way you loved watching your mother as she hummed her favorite tunes while putting her make up on or as she sat on her bed and tried her red kimonos on. But your love towards women was never a sloppy kind- you wouldn't lay a finger on a woman for anything in the world.   
But what you're feeling now is different. Because you know Aoba well, you've known him all your life, and as a child you loved watching him play and hearing his laughter and holding his hands. And now, now you think of him and want to feel him, all of him. It's not chasing tails anymore, it's cat and mouse and you've always been no mouse. It's an inner desire of destroying your little talks and burning them up with each and single on of your fantasies and seeing the surprise in his eyes as he looks at you because he wouldn't look at anybody else, he wouldn't kiss anybody else, he wouldn't open up to anybody else but you. 

You press your wrists onto your eyelids. This is messed up like few of the things you've ever been into. You sigh and just as you're about to stand up, your Coil rings. You look at the caller's identity, it's Aoba. You freeze. You answer and try talking like nothing had happened, like you weren't thinking of him in such an indecent way, but his voice and the small laughs he lets out every now and then make you feel only more miserable. He calls you to thank you for having joined them at lunch and asks so politely if you'd join them for dinner as well. You look up at the hour and realize it really almost is dinner time. Usually you wouldn't think about it and would agree happily, but now it's different. Can you really take being face to face with a person who was dancing all over you inside your head? You shake your head, and tell him an half truth, that you slept all afternoon after Tae's delicious lunch and that if you passed by for dinner as well, your day would've been a complete nap. He laughs and says that you're always the same before picking up, and you're left in the darkness of your room with a voice inside your head telling you that no, you aren't the same.

You can't be the same.


End file.
